New York noise-rock band formed in 1982 by guitarists Mark C and Tom Paine, with Marnie Greenholz on bass and James Lo on drums.

Together with Sonic Youth and Swans, Live Skull helped shape the term noise rock in the 1980s, spearheading the post-No Wave underground music scene in NYC with a series of live performances and 8 records released over the course of that decade. Often brutal and yet strangely seductive, each of these albums creates hooks out of the most unlikely, seemingly disruptive elements, subverting traditional rock forms in previously unheard ways that became an undeniable (albeit often unacknowledged) influence on many of their contemporaries. Live Skull broke up in 1989, just within sight of that magical moment when the sort of music they pioneered began to finally break through.

In 2016, Mark C, and Richard Hutchins restarted the band, releasing 3 more albums.